Development of a simulation procedure for the analysis of three-dimensional fibre-reinforced composites

Abstract

A simulation procedure is proposed to idealize a three-dimensional composite to an axisymmetric model which can then be easily analysed by the finite element technique. A comparison is made between the proposed and conventional finite element methods for the elastic constants obtained from two different types of material. The results show that the proposed procedure is reasonably accurate and reliable. Moreover, an example is employed to illustrate the usefulness and versatility of the proposed procedure for studying the micro behaviour of composites with unidirectional reinforcement. The results obtained from the proposed procedure are again in good agreement with those obtained from the conventional finite element technique. © 1994.